Avatars

Osho, in Krishna’s time there was the great war of the Mahabharata, and Krishna held a central place in it. He could have stopped the war if he had wanted to—but he did not. A vast devastation followed, and much of the responsibility for that devastation seems to fall on Krishna. Can Krishna be blamed for that war?

This race resembles the one that began some three centuries ago when ships from Europe rushed toward Asia—Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German. Then, expansion and development demanded possession of Asian lands. Now that has become meaningless. Asians think their independence movements freed them; that is only half true. The other half is that there is no longer any point in holding Asian territory. That era is over. Now the struggle is to possess other ground—celestial ground. Eyes and energies have turned there. Life is an adventure of power. Those who embrace lifelessness are gradually destroyed. We are such a people—being destroyed. All the more reason why Krishna’s message is meaningful—not only for us. I would say the West too stands at a point where it may have to fight one more decisive war—surely not on earth. Even if rivals on earth must fight one another, they will likely do it…

Questioner: there was a king named pondrak in the times of krishna. This man had declared krishna to be a fake and himself to be the real krishna. Can you say if similar things have happened in the lives of buddha, mahavira and other enlightened beings?

Yes, they did happen. In the times of Mahavira, a man named Goshalak had declared that he, not Mahavira, was the real tirthankara. The Jews crucified Jesus on the basis that a carpenter's son was falsely claiming to be a Messiah; he was not real. The real messiah was yet to come. The Jewish tradition believed that a messiah would come; many past prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah had predicted it. Just before the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist had gone from village to village announcing that the messiah is on his way who will redeem all people. And then a young man named Jesus came on the scene declaring that he was the messiah. But the Jews refused to accept him; instead they crucified him, on the grounds that he was a fake, he was not the real messiah. No other person except Jesus claimed to be the…

Osho, “Kaliḥ śayāno bhavati, saṃjihānas tu dvāparaḥ; uttiṣṭhan tretā bhavati, kṛtaṃ saṃpadyate caran. Charaiveti. Charaiveti.” “He who is asleep is Kali; the one who sits up from sleep is Dvāpara; the one who stands up is Tretā; but the one who starts walking becomes the Kṛta-yuga, the Sat-yuga, the golden age. Therefore keep moving, keep moving.” Osho, please be gracious and explain the purport of this subhāṣita from the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.

Not only small people—your very Maryādā Puruṣottam Rāma runs after a golden deer! He loses the real Sītā chasing a fake golden deer. And this is everyone’s story: people lose the real running after the unreal. They chase a golden deer. Even the craziest person can understand there are no golden deer! The world is called a mirage. This very Rāma calls the world dreamlike, māyā, like the mirage that deludes a thirsty deer in the desert when the sun’s rays... There is a way the sun’s rays behave. Falling on bare sand, they heat it; heated sand reflects rays back. Those returning waves from afar look exactly like water rippling. Not only do they seem so, they appear with “proof”—because when the rays return, the ripples look water-like, and the silhouettes of trees nearby appear in those waves like reflections in a lake. Seeing that reflection, the deer becomes…

Osho, on the one hand human life is filled with great suffering, and to be rid of these sufferings man waits for ages for some avatar in the hope that someone will deliver him. But when that auspicious moment arrives, he does everything possible to avoid it and ends up hacking at his own foot. Osho, is it really true that man does not want to be free of his torments?

Ramakrishna ate fish—how will Jains accept him as Paramhansa? He eats fish! If he doesn’t even know not to eat fish, what else can he know? He ate at night too—how can he be a Paramhansa? Remember: your fantasies are your fantasies; no person comes to fulfill them. Avatar means: whenever someone attains the ultimate knowing, he is unique. He will not fit your patterns. He will tear all your nets of imagination. Hence it is hard for you to accept. You could accept him if he walked exactly along your line. But “men of the line” can exist in pageants, not in reality. So people wait for ages for an avatar, hoping someone will save them. That hope is wrong too—because no one else can save you. You create the trouble; someone else should deliver you? You fall ill—you must undergo treatment, the operation, drink the medicine. You are…